


World Enough, And Time

by confusedkayt



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Domestic, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, timestamps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:53:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5521025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confusedkayt/pseuds/confusedkayt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal Lecter may or may not be gone, and is certainly not forgotten.  A look in on the women who have survived him in the aftermath of the Wrath of the Lamb, featuring:<br/>1) Kade Prurnell having a lousy day<br/>2) Chiyoh keeping her cool on a boat<br/>3)  Margot and Alana in a gingerbread house<br/>.... and soon to feature<br/>4)  Bedelia's overseas adventures<br/>5)  Reba and Freddie's not-so-excellent adventure<br/>6) Molly's solid foundations</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kade Prurnell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Petronia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petronia/gifts).



> For gift recipient genufa, who expressed fondness for the amazing array of female characters on Hannibal and a preference for post-season 3. There's a little more gloom than I might've hoped, but here's hoping I still landed on "bittersweet." :P
> 
> I'm afraid work and general IRL holiday mayhem tripped up my attempts to get every major surviving female character in on this timestamp goodness by the 24th, but I intend to round this out with an encounter between Freddie and Reba, a peek on Bedelia's glamorous pastimes, and a new home and hope for Molly. I hope you enjoy, and sorry for the half-finished gift! The spirit was willing but the fingers were weak. :D

The curled pieces of varnish coming off the edge of her desk are driving her nuts. Kade resists the urge to pick at them. She’s fidgeting, and she knows it. In fact, better to put her pen and pad in the drawer before Crawford arrives.

There’s a certain satisfaction to it, usually. Hell, there’s a lot to be said for this week - the State Department’s always got problem people who want to make the most out of a cushy government job no matter what hell there is to pay. Performance plans, busting a few people back down to positions where they’re comfortable, where they can’t do any harm, that’s not so bad. But days like this…

A knock, heavy, against the doorframe. He’s early. She takes a deep breath, lets it settle her spine. “Come in, Jack.”

He’s been through it. It shows. “Kade,” he says, and that’s a sad attempt at a smile. It just deepens the tired lines that pass for his face these days.

“We both knew this day was coming,” and she lets just a hint of apology slip in. 

“That we did,” and that’s a grim little chuckle. “That we did.” 

He deserves the chance to make the first move, make this easy. He is - was - a good agent, tireless, a record of collars as long as both of her arms and then some. But too much zeal’s as bad as too little, and Jack has so little regard for the letter of the law that the ADAs have a hell of a time making his charges stick, anymore. And that’s putting his white whale aside, which of course they can’t. There’s no record in the world that’ll excuse the deaths that lay squarely and publicly at his feet this time. Heads have to roll, and looking at him she’s not sure he’s glad his will roll metaphorically. It’s a lot to carry around. Avoidable, easily, but that can’t help him now.

The pause has stretched on for too long. “I’m going to strongly recommend you retire,” she says, even, and Jack just blinks at her.

“That gonna be enough?” and it’s in earnest. The captain’s prepared to go down with the ship, and that’s why she still respects him even after all of the crap he’s pulled, is still pulling. She forces herself to smile, but it’s thin.

“It’s a start.” She wishes she had her pen, after all, but she owes him her full and direct attention. She knows how this will go down. Seen it before. She has no intention of seeing it again. “It won’t stop the investigation. It won’t stop the Congressional hearing.” She pauses, and he meets her eyes. “What am I going to find, Jack?”

“Nothing in writing.” There’s conviction, there. He’s telling the truth, or thinks he is. In this day and age, all it takes is one moron and an e-mail.

But still, the relief of it settles her shoulders a little. “That’s something,” she says. All she gets is a little half-nod. “Take some time, Jack. Relax. You thought about what you’re gonna do?” The silence is an answer in itself. “Maybe get on the lecture circuit.”

Narrowed eyes, a huffed breath. She knew that wouldn’t go over, but here’s the kicker. “Don’t go too far. You’ll be testifying.” There it is, the stubbornness, in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. “Don’t go after them, Jack. There’ll be eyes on you.”

“It’s my retirement. Maybe I want to travel,” and that ice-mildness, that’s no good.

“This can get uglier,” and it’s nothing he doesn’t know, but it is a courtesy. There’s a carrot, though, to match the stick. “We’ll keep a team on it. People with enough distance to avoid making this any worse.”

“They don’t know…” he starts, and she cuts him off, ruthless, before he can start to bellow.

“They know the evidence. They know their jobs, Jack.” The silence is mutinous. It’s time for the threats. “They know the law, and how far they can push it before it snaps.”

Another slow blink. Tiredness, again, crowding out that hint of obsession that makes her very, very nervous. “I’m sure they do.” A pause. “Who you gonna put on this?”

Another thin, placating smile even though it’ll put him right back on edge. “That’s not your call any longer.” He’s ready to argue, and she’s abruptly tired of this, the round-and-round, the disrespect. She gets it, she does. It’s a natural urge but it’s one that should’ve been curbed and collared long ago. There’s no place for revenge without accountability. “The less you know, the better. We can’t have you anywhere near this. There’s eyes on the FBI. You know that.”

“I think we’re done here,” and oh, Jack thinks he can play the game.

“You’re a good agent, Jack, but you made some bad decisions.” Kicking while he’s down, but he’s got to hear this, he’s got to, or it’ll be a circus and he’ll be very public roadkill. “Don’t compound them.”

“Understood,” and she wishes like hell she could believe him. 

“We don’t even know that they survived,” she tries, but all she gets for her troubles is a stone face. “We’ll keep looking until we find bodies.” His eyes narrow. “Or something else, Jack. But you know the odds, here.”

He nods, at least. “Well then. Seems I’ve got packing to do,” and he’s up with just a nod goodbye.

She watches his exit, dignified in retreat, and picks up the phone, dials Internal Affairs. “We’re gonna need eyes on Crawford,” and there’s the hum of agreement, promises to keep her posted. She sets the phone down, takes a deep breath. It’s the right thing, there’s not a doubt in her mind. But some days. Some days this job is easier than others.


	2. Chiyoh

The man who stands beside her is not the man she met in Lithuania. He is much quieter, and that is a welcome change. He is competent with the boat, which is a welcome surprise. But he is an unwelcome presence, unsettling as ever he was but in entirely new ways.

They talk, Will Graham and Hannibal, talk and talk each night for hours. The boat is not so large that she can escape them altogether, and she has learned more than she cares to know, for all that she can rarely pick out their words. The way Will Graham holds his face, the way he speaks, the words he chooses are all so different. There are times, still, when Hannibal’s shadows lurk behind Will’s eyes, in his posture, in his speech, but they are infrequent.

And then there are times like this, when his eyes are on her. Too hard, too deep. She feels exposed but not understood. It frustrates him, and his unease pools around her in ways she does not appreciate.

“What are you trying to learn?” and it startles him, as normal human speech always seems to do.

It jolts him enough that his eyes slide to the side, to the rope work he ought to have been attending to in the first place. “I suppose I’ll know when I find it,” he says, and that’s more than enough of him for now. He is best in small doses, or not at all. There is no real need for the both of them up here. Chiyoh slides past him, down the stairs to the galley kitchen. Hannibal blinks at her, amused, and smiles just so in greeting. There’s something different about him now, too, both gentler and more dangerous than the adult reality of him she’d confronted in Virginia so long ago. There’s a chaos to him that she recognizes from his much younger days.

It is evident even now as he moves about the galley kitchen with a precision that is familiar, if honed, now, by decades of habit formed out of her sight. There is a jagged quality to his silence, a deliberation in his choice to move out of sight of the stairs to the upper deck once she has joined him in the kitchen. She knows that he watches Will Graham as though he might vanish, checking and re-checking. Will Graham knows it too. He is more sullen, but tracks Hannibal just as keenly. Glances are not more subtle from the side, no matter what he might think.

The potential energy is enormous, and an irritant. Sometimes she thinks she has not been steady in her skin since the day Hannibal shattered her stasis by proxy. Perhaps, instead, it was the day he stepped into a cage. She still does not understand it in any satisfying way. Three people, together on a boat with nothing but time, and still none of them can understand each other. It is a riddle, or a fable. It is excruciating. 

“Where will you go, Chiyoh, when we land?” Hannibal has sensed her mood, perhaps, and wishes to dispel it. The effort is welcome.

“I would like to see Easter Island,” she offers, and he spares her one of his sidelong smiles. “I will see many things, I think, while I have the chance.”

He remains silent. Their meal occupies him, of course, but Hannibal as she knows him knows the value of silence for its own sake. When he is with her, he still knows. Now, though, it is a speaking silence. He thinks to remind her of her promise to watch over him, a promise he rejected when it suited him and thinks, now, to reignite.

That is destructive to the both of them. “All promises are conditional, born of necessity and time,” and that earns her a sharp look. “You would not thank me for watching when you do not know what there is to see.” Hannibal gives no sign that he has heard her, which is the surest sign that he truly has. “I will know, if you are not well-watched.”

Hannibal rests his attention on her. It is a heavy weight, meant to intimidate. She meets his eyes. He looks, long, and turns back to his cooking. “Watchfulness takes may forms, according to necessity and time.”

She does not allow herself to breathe too deep with the relief of it. Hannibal understands, or accepts. And he knows, of course, that she is never far. Her fate was bound to his in childhood, but now it suits and amuses him to lengthen the tether. It will do, for now, while it still pleases her to wander the wide world.


	3. Alana Bloom

She knows better than this.

She knows better. She knows it’s not healthy to let fear control her. She knows that she ought to get out of the house more, take a job, some structure that will help her create a new normal and give her something better to do than check and re-check and recite the steps of her checklist again and again in an attempt to control the terrible sensation that she’s being hunted, being watched. She knows her unease is the source of most of the tension pulling Margot’s shoulders tight at the kitchen table, even as she sits laughing and coloring with Morgan. At the very least, she knows they’ve been waiting on milk and cookies for too long.

Alana forces herself to turn away, get three little glasses and fill them with milk and put them on the tray next to the cookies. It’s not rational, but she still feels a too-large rush of relief when they’re still there when she turns back and makes her way over to the table. Feelings aren’t rational. She knows this. She knows.

Margot looks at her with soft eyes and Morgan greets the cookies with a little round of applause. “Mother, look, I drew our castle!” he says, and she coos over the drawing he hands on over even as her gut twists, a little. He doesn’t miss Muskrat Farm, not too terribly. She knows this. He’s taken to Germany very well, already learning so many new words in the international pre-k that had been all to willing to take him, security concerns be damned.

“We’ve got our gingerbread cottage, too,” and Margot’s smile is more warmth than strain. That’s something. Sure enough, the next drawing is their funny little house with its cartoon-perfect Bavarian eaves, Margot and Alana and Morgan out front holding hands, Piers and Lorenz smiling from the sides. She’ll have to show them later. Better yet, she’ll let Morgan do it. It’ll make their day. And if she’s hoping Morgan’s hold on their hearts can buy him better security than Margot’s money ever could, well.

Morgan, who’s moved onto the cookies with rapt silence and a big grin. “Looks like I’ve made a hit,” she teases. He swallows before he gives her the thumbs up and a “Thanks, Mother!”

“You’re welcome, squidlet,” and he’s scrunching up his nose at that.

“Don’t call me that. I’m not a _baby_ ,” and that startles a laugh out of her, her big boy.

“Of course not,” she says, mock-serious. She gets another grin for that. Morgan looks longingly at the cookie on her plate, still untouched, but straightens up and asks, “May I be excused, please?”

“Sure,” and Margot’s smiling, collecting the crayons. “Why don’t you go outside and play with Helga?”

“Ok, Mom,” and he’s off like a shot. Helga’s waiting for him at the door - nearly always is. Margot was nervous, at first, around the big German Shepherd but it’s plain she adores Morgan and it gives both of his parents a little peace of mind. Another loyalty that can’t be bought. Another line of defense.

She’s doing it again. Her frustration must show; Margot’s eyes are cautious as she reaches out to take Alana’s hand, playing with the fingertips. There’s a quiet moment, a good moment, made even better when Morgan and Helga come into sight of the picture window, running and wrestling and both clearly thrilled.

“We done good,” she says, and threads her fingers through Margot’s.

Margot’s smile falters, a little, and she sits up straighter, tries to catch Alana’s eyes. “I keep waiting, you know. He’s our good little guy and I still… Some days, I keep looking for a little piece of Mason in him.”

Alana’s throat closes up, at that, but Margot’s squeezing her hand, gentle. Her eyes are so gentle. So’s her voice. “It doesn’t just… go away. I know better, and I know that I don’t need to… That he’s not _here_ anymore…”

“Sweetie,” and it’s ripped out of her, and she has to pull Margot close, she’s half out of her chair to do it, and Margot stands, too, but stays a step back and holds Alana’s eyes.

“It doesn’t just go away,” she repeats. “Not for me. It’s all right that it doesn’t for you.”

Her eyes are wet and the words won’t come, so she pulls Margot close, holds her tight against herself. A long, warm moment, and she finds her voice. “We have a good thing here, and I just…”

“You want to keep it,” and Margot’s voice is fierce and warm and grateful. She rocks back, not far, just enough to catch Alana’s eyes again. “Let’s do the list.”

“We don’t have…” And Margot gives her a level look. Alana relents immediately, sliding behind her wife to hold her tight around the middle, rest her chin over Margot’s shoulder so they can watch their kid and their dog laughing in their yard while they do it. “Let’s do the list.”

Margot slides her hands up over Alana’s. “Our house is in a busy neighborhood, and we know all of our neighbors. They know what to watch out for,” and hadn’t that been a series of coffeklatch hells but they’d owed it to the neighbors, to themselves, and people had been so nice about it, considering.

“Hey,” and Margot gives a little nudge with her chin. “Don’t get lost back there.”

Alana chuckles, but it’s her turn, fair and square. “We have electronic security and know how it works and how to tell if it’s been tampered with.”

“We have Piers and Lorenz and their team,” and Margot settles back against her, warm and present. “And a whole houseful of people who know what to do if they don’t check in.”

“We have Helga,” and she currently doesn’t look very fierce, long tongue lapping against Morgan’s face, to his evident delight.

“We have feelers out with Interpol and the local police and the FBI besides, and a plan to get out of town at the first peep from any of them,” and god, god, what has she done to deserve such a partner.

She presses a kiss to Margot’s hair. “We have security at the preschool. And the panic room, here and there.”

Margot snuggles against her, warm and close. “We have the helicopter on call, if the feces really hits the fan. We have the safe houses.” She nudges Alana’s face with her own. “We’ve planned for everything we can think of, with contingencies for everything we didn’t.”

It’s a basic exercise, basic coping. A grasp for control, and if she’s learned nothing else, she ought to know that’s always only an illusion. The list can only do so much, but it’s something, it’s something, especially with the sunlight and her warm wonderful wife doing it with her. Understanding.

“They took so much, but they can’t take this,” and Margot is lovely and fierce and it’s possible, almost easy, even, to believe her.

“Can’t take this,” she agrees, and seals it with a kiss.


End file.
